Trent Dalton

Trent Dalton is the author of Boy Swallows Universe, a critically acclaimed national bestseller and winner of the 2019 Indie Book of the Year Award, the MUD Literary Prize, and the UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing and the People's Choice Award at the 2019 NSW Premier's Literary Awards.

At the 2019 Australian Book Industry Awards, the book won a record four awards, including the prestigious Book of the Year Award. Boy Swallows Universe has been published across thirty-four English language and translation territories. His second novel, All Our Shimmering Skies, was published by HarperCollins in October 2020 and has also become a national bestseller.

His newest release, Lola in the Mirror, explores the story of a girl on the run, and the darker sides of life in Australia.

Meet Trent Dalton

Trent Dalton was born in Ipswich, Queensland in 1979. He is the youngest of four boys, and had a challenging childhood as his mother and stepfather both spent time in jail for selling heroin. Trent then spent the rest of his childhood in a housing commission property with his father on the outskirts of Brisbane.

Dalton started his career in journalism, studying at the University of Southern Queensland and the Queensland University of Technology. In 2000, he started work as a writer for Brisbane News, then spent time working at The Courier-Mail as a journalist.

His first novel, Boy Swallows Universe is semi-autobiographical, and put him on the international map as a hugely talented Australian author.

Trent is also a two-time winner of a Walkley Award for Excellence in Journalism, a four-time winner of a Kennedy Award for Excellence in NSW Journalism and a four-time winner of the national News Awards Features Journalist of the Year.